Paternally Piratical Princesses
by Ice of the Kitsune's Fire
Summary: :For Father's Day: Not even the strongest of warriors can resist Wendy's puppy dog eyes... meaning Natsu and Gajeel are officially doomed.


Father's day is an odd holiday to Wendy- both Grandine and Charle are female, so she's never been lacking in the motherly-figure department, and subsequently, has never felt as if she needed a father.

But as Wendy walks down the street on her way to Fairy Tail and sees a little girl playing with her "Daddy!", laughing like the most carefree person in Fiore, she can't help but feel a twinge of jealousy. Charle, who quite frankly finds the whole thing perturbing, ignores the little girl as she cackles with her father as they pretend to be pirates in a showdown for treasure.

Wendy lingers behind, maybe, and only a little. The girl's smile is really something else.

As most little girls do, Wendy's imagination kicks into full-gear, whirring through possibilities and cranking out the scenarios. Things she'd never thought of, like, "_What if I had a Daddy?"_, and "_It looks like a lot of fun_", and _"Maybe, just maybe, I'm jealous."_

If she had a father, she'd want it to be… Wendy thinks hard for a moment- who are the males she admire the most? The ones who come to mind are equally tied for her admiration: Natsu and Gajeel, the ones she's always looked up to as the toughest people she knows, are definitely at the top of the list. And they're the ones who understand, as well, what it was like to lose your parent…

The very thought sends her into another bout of depression.

Wendy walks into the guild solemnly, and every single person swivels their head and stares. It's not often that inquisitive, bright little Wendy is quiet and gloomy. She sits down at Natsu and Lucy's table, and gives a little purposeful sigh.

"Are you alright, sweetie?" Lucy asks, and when Natsu doesn't support her in her query, the blonde elbows him _hard_ in the gut- he gives a loud '_oof_!' in response, and grimaces, smiling weakly at Wendy.

"W-what's wrong, Wendy?" Natsu squeaks out.

Wendy looks at him, wondering what it would be like if the pink-haired loudmouth were her father. He was careless and irresponsible, sure, but he would always be exciting and fun…

She doesn't notice that she's started crying until Natsu's eyes widen like saucers and he begins to hover over her helplessly as she sobs, frantic and unsure of what to do.

"Wendy?" Natsu asks hesitantly (it's one of those rare moments that he's actually _careful_ at all), almost afraid of this tiny little girl who is shaking. "D-do you… do you need anything?"

"I want to play," Wendy sniffles, blurting the first thing that comes to mind- that little girl with her Daddy had been so… so happy! It wasn't _fair!_ "I want to play pirate!"

"Oh, sorry, Lucy and I were kinda gonna go on a mission-"

Lucy gives Natsu another obvious whack to the gut, and he opens his mouth to choke out that he'll play with her when Wendy adds on,

"I want Gajeel to play, too."

"No way!" Natsu immediately snarls. It is at this time that Wendy plays her trump card- her head shoots up, her eyes widening and shaking and shining and, _oh, god damn it, she's adorable_. "Fine, fine!" Natsu amends.

Wendy's tears magically stop and she starts cheering.

"Did someone say my name?" Gajeel's voice rumbles from behind the trio, and they turn to gape as Gajeel's intimidating figure approaches. Wendy has no such thoughts.

"Play pirate with us!" She beams at him.

Gajeel takes one look at the small dragonslayer and quickly turns to make his escape. However, Wendy has other plans.

Opening her large, hazel eyes as wide as they can go, Wendy crams her eyes full of doleful, melancholy tears and pushes out her bottom lip. Gajeel twitches, but nonetheless continues on his way; it's when Wendy lets out a tiny, pathetic hiccup that he loudly groans and turns around.

Wendy has to hide her mouth under a dainty hand to conceal the wide grin that has spread over her face.

"I want to be the pirate!" Is Wendy's first command, jumping onto the table (er, that was how it was done, right?) and waving a large, imaginary sword.

"Ooh, ooh, me too!" Natsu leaps up. "I want to be the pirate hero!"

"You, a hero?" Gajeel snorts, crossing his arms and pretending to be uninterested (but you can tell that he is by the way his eyes slant curiously). "Even _I _would do better. I say that _I_ be the pirate hero-"

The two dragonslayers are stopped dead in their tracks by Wendy, whose eyes are shimmering woefully again, along with… her entire demeanor (and _how did she do that?_).

"B-but, _I_ _w-wanted to be the pirate hero!_" She sniffs twice, allowing her head to droop down. Natsu and Gajeel shift uncomfortably and after many, many terse moments, finally concede.

"Alright!" Wendy beams at the two (who are now scared out of their minds, seriously, because who knew a girl barely four feet tall could have so much _power over them_?) "Since I'm the pirate, you two are officially… Princesses!"

"WHAT?" Gajeel squawks at the same time Natsu whoops. The pink-haired dragonslayer wastes no time in approaching Lucy and tearing off her dress- the blonde shrieks as her underwear is shown to the world and runs out of the guild, bawling. More than a few catcalls and stares follow her out.

Meanwhile, Natsu is putting on Lucy's dress.

"Wendy, I am _not_ a cross- a cross-dressing _sissy!_" Gajeel chokes out his rage, and does his best to look intimidating. Wendy, frankly, finds it hard to be intimidated when your mother was a _dragon_.

"B-But Gajeel!" Wendy whimpers. Gajeel does his best to find inner peace and _look away and avoid any eye contact with these freaks and their adorable puppy dog eyes and cross-dressing habits._

Natsu breaks Gajeel's concentration in one fell swoop: "Does Lucy's dress make my butt look big?" He snickers.

Gajeel whirls around to sock Natsu in the face, and instead finds Wendy and her god damned pout.

"Fffffff," Gajeel chokes, and finally admits defeat. "Anything _but_ a Princess, Wendy, _please_."

The pig-tailed dragonslayer glances at Natsu (who is pretending to ballroom dance with Happy while simultaneously sipping tea from an imaginary cup) and admits to herself that seeing the dragonslayers of Fairy Tail as Princesses was mildly disturbing.

"Let's have a sleepover, then!" Wendy beams up at the two.

Her smile is absolutely, terrifyingly blinding. Natsu and Gajeel open their mouths to protest (it's _girly_, for crying out loud! Only _girls with cooties did sleepovers-_), take one look at her shining face and recognize their defeat.

_They're doomed_.

* * *

><p>They somehow manage to escape Charle's grasp (Natsu has slyly sent Happy to distract Charles), and walk towards Natsu's house (because Gajeel absolutely <em>refuses<em> to let anyone into his abode).

It's awkward; they're walking tentatively hand-in-hand (Natsu is confidently grasping Wendy's hand under her request, while Gajeel's fingers are barely brushing her other hand, under no circumstances wanting to be linked to _Natsu_ in any way), but the two older dragonslayers can't protest when Wendy looks so damned _happy_.

Gajeel curses Wendy's puppy dog eyes and Natsu is mourning the loss of his pride as they walk down the path to his house.

Wendy's first reaction to Natsu's home is "_Wow!_ It's so _clean_, Natsu!" Gajeel sends stares of disbelief at Wendy as Natsu grins from ear to ear.

"Yeah, Lucy cleaned it for me once, but I thought it looked too stiff, so I organized it again!"

Gajeel lightly toes the remains of rubble from the old guild hall and several sweaty, stinky socks, and wonders what Natsu's definition of 'organize' is. Wendy's is clearly skewed.

Wendy immediately claims the single hammock that the house has as her bed for the night, and looks up sternly at Natsu and Gajeel, who are awkwardly staring back at her, unsure of what to do next. Yet again, Wendy has absolutely _no such problem. _Her mind whirring at full speed, she smiles and raises a hand. _What would a Daddy do…?_

"I want macaroni and cheese for dinner," Wendy points at Gajeel, and before he can protest, swings her finger in Natsu's direction, continuing, "and I want you to clean up my- er, your room."

"But it _is_ clean!" Natsu shouts, offended. Gajeel snickers, because cooking was _much_ more preferable to _cleaning_, but his moment is quickly broken.

"And you have to wear… _that_," Wendy says gravely, pointing. The two males swivel their heads to see Lucy's maid outfit on a mannequin, proudly dusted and cleaned.

"Dude," Gajeel says, wondering if the day can get _any worse_, and he might as well torture Natsu for all its worth: "Isn't that thing _Lucy's_?"

"Er, well, yeah," Natsu grumbles to the floor, his face the slightest tinge of pink. Gajeel grins maniacally and sees the implications of the situation as _so freakin' blackmail worthy_, but Wendy's stomach grumbles.

His red, slanted eyes creep to her figure- she's still pointing at the maid outfit, damn it.

Muttering curses under his breath as Natsu cackles, Gajeel steps behind a towering statue of crap and junk to change. The outfit is tiny absolutely _everywhere_ except for the chest area (and did every single fucking girl in Fairy Tail have humongous boobs? Levy was probably the only normal, _sane_ one), and he struggles to put even one leg in the thing before it rips.

Gajeel would normally ditch the place, but Wendy's puppy dog eyes are haunting his memories. With a loud curse, he manages to squeeze both of his legs in the thing (and his hips are _totally_ too wide for the damn skirt- and he did _not_ just sound like a chick, damn it!) and yanks it up in a hurry.

The delicate fabric rips in his hands, and the maid dress gets stuck halfway up his large torso so that half of his chest is showing. His arms aren't even in the sleeves. With a large sigh and yet another _"oh, this is so fucked up"_, he walks out from behind the pile of junk.

Wendy bursts out laughing- Natsu peers up from behind the couch to take a look and drops everything he's holding, halfway between cleaning up and staring in horror. "Aw, you bastard, you _ripped_ _Lucy's dress_!"

Gajeel is torn between teasing Natsu about how he probably wears the freakin' thing when no one's looking and other things that Natsu even having Lucy's maid outfit imply, but he's too busy flushing a damnable red as Wendy continues her fit of giggles.

"Damn it, I'm _out of here-_"

"Noooooooo!" Wendy wails, and _fuck it all, she's unleashing the puppy dog eyes of DOOOOOOOM on them!_

Gajeel grumpily trudges to Natsu's tiny stove to prepare the food (and it was so fucking _hard_ to walk in the damn thing!) Natsu is torn between guffawing and tearing up as he cleans the room.

Wendy smiles brightly at them the entire time, her eyes as bright as her smile; the two dragonslayers don't even _dare_ to utter a word of protest.

She finds that she's not even bored, watching the two as Gajeel ruins Natsu's barely-big-enough-to-see stove in his attempts to cook, and Natsu somehow stumbles across several articles of Lucy's clothing as he cleans, always bewildered as to how they got there in the first place.

Finally, the food is done (it's burnt and tastes kind of like iron, but Gajeel won't have that because he spent _four fucking hours on it, damn it!_), and the room is clean (except for some scraps of questionable, lacy cloth stuffed under Natsu's couch). Wendy knows _exactly_ what to do next-

Hopping in the hammock and pulling the worn, ragged blanket over her body, she chirps, "I want a bedtime story!"

"You didn't even touch your mac'n'cheese!" Gajeel hisses as Natsu pulls up a wobbly stool beside the hammock and grins toothily, ignoring the iron dragonslayer's incensed shouts.

"Once upon a time, there was a super-cool fire-dragonslayer named… Atsun, in a guild called… Pixie Tail, and he always kicked this one guy's ass, whose name was Gajee- uh, Jeegal," Natsu begins, and Gajeel growls.

"What the hell, man? That's obviously you, Fairy Tail, and me- _wait a sec_, no way in _hell_ would you ever kick _my_ ass!"

Wendy watches in a bemused silence as _THE BEDTIME WARS_ begin- if this was what Fathers did on a regular basis, then she wouldn't mind, really…

"-and then Atsun stormed the Ghost guild and beat up Jeegal _real_ good-"

"-the fuck, man? Jeegal was _obviously_ the better of the two and he _obviously _kicked Atsun's ass several different ways-"

"-oh, you wanna bet? Bring it on-"

"-you want a piece of me? Well, _then_ Jeegal took a huge iron screw and-"

"-Atsun blocked it with his epic fire- uh, lasers!"

"-dude, you don't _have_ lasers-"

"-not me, this is _Atsun_ we're talking about-!"

Wendy allows a small, amused smile to sneak across her features and she quietly sneaks out of the room for a breath of night air. Natsu and Gajeel are caught up in telling their odd bedtime story, and don't notice the door as it quietly clicks shut amidst their continued squabbling. She'd ask them to tuck her in, later…

The petite girl seats herself in the grass, eyeing the small river that trickles past with its soothing sounds. She breaths in, breaths out- is this where Natsu and Happy probably fished for dinner on a multitude of occasions?

She looks down at her feet, which clench and unclench as she feels a queer sense of discomfort- Natsu and Gajeel were certainly fun to be around, and while she still couldn't figure out exactly how it was that the two, proud dragonslayers actually bent under her will (the poor girl had yet to realize what kind of force she could unleash, courtesy of her large, hazel eyes), it was a welcoming kind of warmth.

She eyes the stars as they twinkle merrily back down at her. It reminds her of the shine of Gajeel's iron- sure, he was a potty-mouth (and Charle always told her to mind her manners!) and a little rough, but if he were her Father, he'd be protective and large and he would be able to make playgrounds for her with his iron magic. No doubt they would have a grand time…

If Natsu- loud, rambunctious Natsu- were her Father, he'd have a large, warm torso to hug, the kind that would make her feel right at home. He'd be fun and exciting and _comfortable_.

So why did she feel as if the two older dragonslayers would never be fit as people she could call "_Daddy!"_ and love as fathers? Granted, she'd never had one to use as comparison, but despite the fact that they were spending time with her on Father's day, it didn't quite seem to click…

Wendy stands up, giving up on pondering. Perhaps she should go and apologize for wasting their time, because the Fatherly figure she thought she could find in the two is clearly not there. She doesn't understand the weird feeling lodging itself in her chest, pushing it aside for more important matters: the day could still be salvaged, right? Maybe everything would feel better if she asked them to tuck her in…

The little girl creeps in through the door again, wondering why the sound of the two men's voices have cut off, and stops short in the doorway.

What she sees sends warmth coursing through her entire body, and Wendy smiles, finally understanding.

Natsu and Gajeel are sprawled in the small house; Natsu is halfway off the hammock, and Gajeel is taking up the space on the floor with his towering build. Gajeel snores like a chainsaw, whirring and snarling, while Natsu snores like a crackling fire as drool drips out of his mouth.

The sight is frightening and it's a little odd, but Wendy manages a chuckle anyway, because it's endearing and there's absolutely no fright in her at all- only the content feeling of realization. The small dragonslayer giggles once more, and tugs on the blanket a little so that it's kinda-sorta covering the both of them.

_There,_ she thinks, satisfied, _I tucked you both in._

Wendy curls up in a small ball between the two dragonslayers, and the warmth emanating from their very presence is enough to soothe her soul. Her eyes fluttering shut, she allows yet another content smile to grace her features as she drifts off to sleep despite the constant snoring and snorts.

_Because fathers could be nice…_

…_but big brothers could be better._

* * *

><p>AN: Happy Father's Day! I know the whole 'brother-sister' theme kind of contradicts the idea of a Father's Day story, but I couldn't help it. Wendy kind of wrote herself... so at least it has a familial theme.

Review if you love the dragonslayers as much as I do~


End file.
